Minnesota Timberwolves: What If They Drafted Stephen Curry?

The Minnesota Timberwolves 2009 NBA draft could go down as one of the biggest squandered opportunities in franchise history.

Entering the summer of 2009, the Minnesota Timberwolves were coming off one of their worst seasons in franchise history, tallying 60 losses.

It was the beginning of the David Kahn era and it could not have gotten off to a worse start.

Due to a plethora of trades, including the Kevin Garnett deal a few years earlier, the Timberwolves held four selections in the first round.

Even though the 2009 lottery didn’t fall the way the Timberwolves had hoped, they still ended up with the fifth and sixth overall picks in the draft to go along with the 18th and 28th selections.

The Timberwolves ended up selecting four players under 6 feet 4 inches tall, with three of them being point guards.

Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Ty Lawson, and Wayne Ellington are all members of the infamous 2009 draft class.

As we all know Rubio took a few years to come to the NBA as he didn’t make his debut until the 2011-12 season. He has been a bit of a disappointment since but altogether has been a solid point guard for the Timberwolves.

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After declaring for the draft early, Flynn was a complete bust. He had a good rookie year averaging 13.5 points and 4.4 assists per game but quickly went downhill from there. Flynn lasted only three seasons in the NBA, two of them with Minnesota.

Immediately after the draft, the Wolves agreed to trade Ty Lawson to the Denver Nuggets for a 2010 1st round draft pick. For his first six years in the NBA and despite being traded away, Lawson looked to be the best point guard of the three the Wolves selected.

Ellington has a made a solid career for himself despite being an undersized shooting guard. He is currently on his seventh NBA team and has averaged 7.5 points per game throughout his career.

When the Timberwolves were on the clock with the fifth pick, nobody blamed them when they decided to select Ricky Rubio.

With Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, and Tyreke Evans already off the board, the Timberwolves faced an easy decision about who to draft at five.

Rubio came in second on a consensus 2009 NBA draft ranking list, therefore making him the highest rated prospect left on the board for Minnesota.

What the Minnesota Timberwolves did next has continued to haunt them to this day. The are especially reminded about it every April, May, and June when the NBA playoffs are happening.

Exactly one pick after they drafted an 18-year-old point guard, the Timberwolves decided to draft another point guard. This time it was the 6 foot nothing Jonny Flynn, also known as The Player Who Was Drafted Before Stephen Curry.

Curry, as we all know, was then immediately selected with the seventh overall pick by the Golden State Warriors.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Curry is the greatest shooter of all time and constantly reminds us of that. To make matters worse, Flynn and Rubio have combined for 356 3-pointers in their career while Curry has made 1,917 3’s by himself.

We all know that Curry has gone on to win two MVP’s as well as an NBA Championship, which makes it hurt even more.

The Minnesota Timberwolves could have been something special with the trio of Steph Curry, Kevin Love and Al Jefferson, but thanks to David Kahn we will never know.